


Should There Be Starlight

by PrincessQuill



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2648756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessQuill/pseuds/PrincessQuill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tauriel sacrifices her life in Mirkwood and her position as captain of the guard to act on her convictions. With Legolas's help, she pursues the orcs hunting the dwarves to Laketown, where the Elves rescue Kili and the others. This Kiliel-ish fic offers a possible progression of events beyond DoS, with multiple POVs and a synthesis of movie and bookverse. It will go through to BoFA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Decision Made

The river glimmered through the trees like a great water-serpent sunning itself in the forest.  Scales of afternoon light winked on its hide.  Tauriel had been hugging its banks for over an hour, but there was no hint of any disturbance on its surface or shadows by its shore.  She hadn’t expected to find any signs of her quarry this soon, but hope was a harsh mistress.  Her keen eyes skimmed the sweep of the forest ahead of her, always returning to the silver luster of the water on her left, as if she thought she might catch sight of a barrel, or the remains of one.  Her feet drummed a light tattoo into the earth as she plunged through the woodland, weaving a pattern clever enough to outwit even the most intricate tangle of roots.

_I know you_ , she thought as she ducked a low-hanging branch that seemed to swoop out of nowhere.  _I have spent six hundred years learning to think as you do.  You cannot fool me_.

Always the great forest of Mirkwood sought to ensnare those who roamed its reaches, even those who lived there, who had been born there, as Tauriel had.  She had fallen prey to its many traps more times than she cared to admit.  But she had been raised at the forest’s knee.  Time and experience had taught her what to expect, and it was a rare day indeed when Taur-e-Ndaedelos could best her.

If she had learned anything from recent events, though, it was that the forest could still surprise her.  Only a few days ago, it had brought a strange company into its midst, the sort of which had not been seen in this country for many years.  Any number of dwarves was a peculiar number to be wandering in Mirkwood, but thirteen seemed even more so. 

 _Thirteen and they still needed rescuing_.   Trust dwarves to get themselves into such a sticky situation.  Tauriel’s patrol had discovered the party waylaid by spiders in a thickly-webbed hollow, where she and Legolas had dispatched the dark creatures and captured the dwarves. They had not taken kindly to the gesture (nor had the spiders, for that matter), but what had they expected?  They were trespassers and had been treated as such, imprisoned in the Woodland Realm—at least they were safe from the spiders.  But that had not been enough.  By some trickery, they had escaped in barrels on the Forest River. As captain of King Thranduil’s guard, it had been Tauriel’s duty to keep her charges where they belonged: in the cells deep in the Elvenking’s halls.  She had failed in that duty. 

And yet it was not disgust with her own failure—though there was plenty of that to go around—that spurred the warrior onward.  Something had changed in the past few days, though it was hard to pinpÓint exactly what it was.  An unfamiliar taste on her tongue, a foreign scent in the air, a new slant of the sun.  Even the way she carried herself seemed different, as though she was leaning forward, tugged by some invisible force.  That pull had become almost unbearable today.  Now that she had heeded it, she felt a freedom that told her she was gOing in the right direction.  Thranduil might have been able to sit on his hands and do nothing while the world burned, but she was not about to sit back and watch everything she had ever known crumble to dust, and everything she hadn’t known, besides.

Inaction was as good as damnation.

The band of orcs had gotten an unfair head start, but they hadn’t bothered to hide their tracks.  Typical Gundabad arrogance.  The trail was still fairly fresh, though not so recent that she thought she’d catch up anytime soon.  Tauriel had wanted to go after them as soon as the dwarves’ barrels had passed through the portcullis, but her obedience to her post had held her back.

 _If the portcullis had never been closed_ . . .

The thought haunted her.  True, the dwarves would still be gone and there would be Thranduil’s displeasure to deal with, but it seemed like a small price to pay in return for the assurance that they were safe—or as safe as one could be, travelling in a wooden vessel on this river.  Those barrels were meant to carry wine, not living creatures.  The guards had closed the portcullis in a misguided effort to follow orders.  Tauriel could not fault them for that.  But in dOing so, they had conveniently gathered the dwarves in one place and exposed them to the onslaught of orcs that had descended upon their escape attempt.

It had been fish in a barrel.  Or rather, thirteen dwarves in barrels.  If Kili had not opened the gate, they might all have been killed then and there.

Instead, only he might be dead.  A fresh wave of fury coursed through her, electrifying her nerves and setting her feet nearly to flight.  The last she had seen of him, he was wounded but still alive, thanks to her.  Tauriel had not realized then the nature of his wound, or else she would have followed them at once.  If the orc she and Legolas had captured had not been lying to them, then Kili’s wound would only worsen.  He would need Elven-skill to heal it, or else the Morgul poison would take him, if the orc pack did not reach him first.   

An expanse of silver-blue filled the negative spaces cut between the trees ahead.  Tauriel veered left, temporarily abandoning the orc-trail.  She vaulted over a fallen tree and launched herself out into the free air.  Here the embankment was wide and rocky, framing a small cascade that brought the Forest River to its end.  The serpent stirred from its sun-bath, slinking into the still body of water that lay beyond.

The vista that opened up before her snagged her breath in her throat.  The Long Lake unfurled across the horizon, luminous and vast.  The settlement of Lake-town clung to its eastern shore like it thought it might be swallowed any day.  Its wooden eaves seemed impossibly far from here, but Tauriel’s razor vision could still make out the silhouettes of the roofs, the curve of boat-prows along the rim of the harbor.  Further to the north, the Lonely Mountain thrust its spire into the sky.  There, the dragon lay sleeping, though not for long, if the dwarves had their way.

Mirkwood ended here, its gnarled growth running to the lakeshore before it had to surrender to the water.  The hunting party of orcs must have already been on its way around the lake.  If the dwarves, too, were on foot, they would soon be overtaken.  Even if they had all been in perfect health, they could not outrun a few dozen orcs and their wargs.  Unless . . .

Tauriel’s eyes roved the surface of the water.  Amidst the distant ice floes she discerned a different shape, dark wood with a billowing crown.  Could some miracle have given them passage across the water?  A breeze rolled in from the lake, swaying Tauriel’s long, coppery hair.  It had some bite to it, the teeth of winter.  But the chill could not frost over the hope that had sparked in the elleth’s heart.  The dwarven company had found a boat, she was sure of it. 

That hardly meant that they were out of danger, but it bought them time.  More importantly, it bought _her_ time.  Her tracking skills would not fail her, nor did she doubt her ability to catch up with the orcs, though dealing with them once she found them was another story.  She would have to cross that bridge when she came to it; for now, the most she could do was follow their trail, which was heading south and east, skirting the contour of the lake.  Heading for Lake-town.

Tauriel was about to double back to the treeline when she heard a flutter of movement behind her: a footstep as quiet as a batting eyelash and the familiar creak of a bowstring.  She bent her own bow in a heartbeat, pulling an arrow from the quiver at her hip and dropping to one knee as she whirled around to face the intruder.  She was not at all surprised to recognize the archer who mounted the higher ground by the waterfall.  The ellon’s posture mirrored her own, his bow an extension of his arms as he aimed an arrow at her throat.  A tense breath passed between them before they both relaxed. 

 _Legolas_.  She had suspected he would not leave well enough alone, as she could not.  She got to her feet as the prince jogged over to her.

“You cannot hunt thirty orcs on your own.”

Tauriel angled a knowing look at him.  “But I am not on my own.”

“You knew I would come,” he said, realizing he had been played for a fool.

She smiled.

“The king is angry, Tauriel.”  He crested the rise beside her, and when she looked back at him she saw that the amusement in his eyes had hardened to disapproval.  “For six hundred years my father has protected you, favored you.  You defied his orders.  You betrayed his trust.”

Her smile slipped; his words struck their mark.  In her many years serving Thranduil, she had never flouted his commands.  She had never been afraid to speak her mind, even when she knew he would reproach her, but she had never openly disobeyed him before.  It had not been easy to do so today, but she was no slave to fear, just as she was slave to no other creature.  She fixed Legolas with a determined stare.

“I have betrayed no one,” she said.  “Your father has given me shelter, but I have given him my life.  I would lay it down for him.” 

“Then come back with me,” Legolas said.  “He will forgive you.”

Tauriel’s eyes narrowed.  “But I will not.  If I go back, I will not forgive myself.”  She stepped closer to the rock’s edge, lifting her gaze across the lake.  The boat was shrinking in the distance.  “The king has never let orc filth roam our lands.  But he would let this orc pack cross our borders and kill our prisoners.”

“It is not our fight.”

“It _is_ our fight.”  She turned back to him.  How could he not see?  The truth was as plain as the orc-trail that ran along the shore.  “It will not end here.  With every victory, this evil will grow.  If your father has his way, we will do nothing.”

Legolas looked away from her, towards Lake-town.  He was as stubborn as they came, and his royal upbringing made him haughty at times, but Tauriel knew he would see sense if he was willing.  She had already weakened his resolve—now she needed to convince him utterly.

“We will do nothing,” she repeated.  “We will hide within our walls, live our lives away from the light, and let darkness descend.” 

The prince glanced back at her suddenly, and she met his ice-blue stare.  She had him now.

“Are we not part of this world?  Tell me, _mellon_.  When did we let evil become stronger than us?”

His fingers had curled into fists, white-knuckling his bow.

“Legolas.”  Her temper ebbed as swiftly as it had flowed.  “Why are you pretending that you have not already decided what to do?”

A small smile betrayed him.  “So that when my father asks, I can tell him that you gave me no choice but to pursue you.”

“Do not waste your pursuit on me,” Tauriel said.  “We must mind much larger game tonight, and we run short of time in which to catch it.  I hope the king is not expecting you for dinner.”

“I hope that you are not expecting him to receive you with open arms when we return,” Legolas warned.  “You may be his captain, but you are not his kin.  Your weakness where the dwarves are concerned will not endear you to him.”

“It is no weakness,” she said sharply.  Kili sprang to her mind, how earnestly he spoke of his promise to his mother, the warmth in his face as he looked at her through the bars.  It could not be weakness to recognize the strength of another soul, whether that soul belong to Elf or dwarf.  And it was not weakness to desire to preserve that strength.  “We must find friends where we can.  If not friends, then allies.”

On this pÓint, Tauriel knew she had not persuaded him.  Suspicion knitted his brow, and the elleth could tell he believed there was more than what she was telling him.  But there was no time to debate the minutiae of her feelings towards the dwarves.  The orcs had already gained too much ground.  They needed to leave now if they had a prayer of overtaking them.

“In that case, we should waste no more time,” said Legolas.  He started towards the forest to find the trail.   “Unless we want our alliance to be with thirteen dead dwarves.”

Tauriel clamped down on her fear as she followed him.  It wouldn’t be.  _Not if I have a hand in it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, good people of AO3! I'm new here, but not to this fic. I've been posting this on ff.net for almost a year now and decided to try it out over here. There are 26 chapters so far, so you have a lot to look forward to . . and I look forward to getting to know you guys! Happy reading.


	2. An Unhappy Accident

“You would think they wanted us to follow them!”

Legolas ran ahead of her, his longer legs covering more distance than she could with every stride.  The Elves had fallen into the natural rhythm of the chase as soon as they had picked up the trail.  For centuries they had hunted together, even before Tauriel had been appÓinted captain, and they had forged a partnership that no spider or orc could compromise.  Legolas’s movements were as familiar to Tauriel as her own; she could anticipate every step he took, had memorized the length of his leaps, and knew whether he would dodge an obstacle or jump it.  They ran in tandem, instinctively shaping their paths in response to the course of the other.

The sensation of moving as one always thrilled Tauriel.  She hadn’t realized until now how much she had hoped for Legolas’s help on this mission.  Her mouth curved into a grin.  They were making good time.  They could do this. 

It helped that the orc-trail was as wide as a road and about as flat.  Neither the wargs nor their riders were particularly subtle creatures, and they had destroyed a good deal of vegetation in their haste.  Tauriel and Legolas had been following the trail for hours, leaving the trees in favor of the open grasslands that trimmed the lakeshore.  The sun had long since sunk behind them, and night gathered heavily over the land, though compared to the gloom in the heart of the forest it seemed radiant.  Moonlight sweated on the surface of the lake, and since when had there been so many stars?  Tauriel’s view of the night sky had always been impaired by the boughs of Mirkwood, and to see it in such glorious fulfillment had made her heart stutter in her chest.  She did not find the stars cold, as Kili had called them, but kindled with a grace that the sun could not know.  They were pinpricks of hope, and they would shine for anyone who needed them.

The moon was high in the sky; it was late.  The cool breeze coming off the water had become a wind that whipped at Tauriel’s tunic.  In the distance, Lake-town glowed amber against a cloak of mountains.  By now the dwarves would most certainly have reached the docks.  Tauriel wondered if whoever had given them passage was now also giving them shelter.  It was the least she could hope for.

“Stealth is not their concern.  Can you see them?” she called to Legolas.  Of the two of them, he had sharper eyesight, though not by much.  His pace slowed slightly as he strained to see through the darkness.  She took the opportunity to draw even him, matching her gait with his own.

“We are closing the gap,” he said after a moment.  “If we do not falter, I think we may be able to overtake them by dawn.”

“We will not falter.”

“Tauriel.”  She could feel his eyes on her, but she kept her gaze trained ahead.  She, too, could make out the form of the orc party some miles ahead of them.  “I am the first to admit that between the two of us, our skill is formidable.  Still, there are only two of us.  We will be greatly outnumbered.”

“If you wanted to sow doubt, then you should not have come,” Tauriel said.  “We may be few, but we are a better match for thirty orcs than those dwarves.”

“Do you have so little faith in your friends?  I thought they were warriors.”

“They are warriors without weapons.  Or did you forget that we disarmed them?  Their effects are in Thranduil’s vaults, now.”

“Not all of them.”  Legolas reached over his shoulder as he ran.  Tauriel’s head turned at the scrape of steel, and her eyes widened when she saw the blade gleaming like a moonbeam in the prince’s hand.  There was no mistaking that crescent crossguard or the elegance peculiar to Gondolin metalcraft.  It was Orcrist, the sword that the dwarves’ leader, Thorin Oakenshield, had wielded when he arrived in Mirkwood.  Legolas had relieved him of that prize, but Tauriel had believed it had been locked up with the rest of the confiscated items. 

“Goblin-cleaver,” she said, with no small measure of reverence.  “How did you come by that?”

“I could not let such a magnificent weapon out of my sight,” Legolas said.  “Why should it not taste orc again?”

“It was not yours to take.”

To her annoyance, Legolas laughed.  “Only you would dare scold me for a crime so trivial in face of your own.  Still, you are right.  It does not belong to me.  But neither does it belong to Oakenshield.”  He returned it to the sheath strapped onto his back.  “Sometimes, as you know, we must challenge our own considerations of what is right.”

Tauriel kept her peace, but privately she thought that he had not brought Orcrist merely because he coveted it.  The sword was not his weapon of choice.  _He plans to return it, even if he does not realize it yet_.  That was the other thing about knowing someone so well—sometimes it meant understanding their intentions and their attitudes before they did.

They wasted no more breath on conversation.  They drove themselves harder than they ever had before, and their progress seemed remarkable to Tauriel, without having to navigate the mazework of the forest and the pitfalls that riddled it.  They could cover so much distance without even trying, skirring across the fields like reflections on a mirror.  Determination kept Tauriel abreast of Legolas, her heart pounding so forcefully in her chest that it hurt.  The physical effort was almost enough to keep her distracted, but every now and again her mind circled back to her fears.  How swiftly would the poison act on Kili?  She knew little about the dwarven constitution, but she could not imagine he had more than a few days at the most.  After all, he was rather small, even if he was on the tall side for a dwarf. 

When she found herself focusing on such thoughts, she simply pushed herself further until it was impossible to think of anything but the strain in her muscles and the breath burning in her throat.  The stars moved steadily overhead, and the moon declined as they rounded the flank of the Long Lake.  A spectral light flushed the sky above Lake-town.  Dawn was approaching, and they had reached the southernmost pÓint of the lake.  The orcs were now so close that Tauriel could easily distinguish every member of their party, wargs and riders alike.  As the sun rose, new shapes appeared on the horizon, some few miles ahead of the Gundabad pack—a cluster of what looked like small buildings or enormous cattle.

“What is it?” Tauriel said, short-winded.  “More enemies?”

“I do not think so.”  Legolas’s tone was troubled.  “Though they are about to discover some.  It looks like a caravan—human merchants, perhaps, making for town or leaving it.”

Tauriel tasted horror in her mouth, a tang like blood.  She realized she had bitten her tongue.

“They chose a poor night to be abroad,” she said with a calmness she did not feel. 

“It could be that the orcs will bypass them.  What matter are they to them?”

“We will see.”

“You cannot save everyone, _mellon_.”

“Perhaps not,” said Tauriel.  “But I can try.”

Not for the first time, the elleth felt her avian eyesight as a burden rather than a blessing as she watched the orc pack close in on the caravan.  The mortals had convened their wagons in a defensive ring by the water’s edge, but that would not be enough.  Such a tactic might have protected them from a smaller group of bandits or a lone predator, but from orcs?  Tauriel doubted that those men had ever witnessed savagery such as they were about to experience, if the orcs decided to attack.  Their best chance was to slumber on and hope—without knowing to hope—that the hunters saw fit to ignore them.

_Either that or they will be slaughtered in their sleep._

But Tauriel was not quite correct in her assumption that all the merchants were still abed.  Oswin the cooper, a middle-aged man who had not the first clue to the irony of his profession at this moment, had arisen only a few moments earlier.  His gout had been acting up something fierce over the past few months, and it was getting worse with the turn towards winter.  His aching jÓints soured his mood and spoiled his dreams.  It was hardly worth it to stay in bed when he couldn’t sleep and it hurt to lie down for too long, anyway.  He huffed about the wagon for a minute or two, but his wife shifted pÓintedly in the bedclothes, so he donned his coat, grabbed his walking stick, and shambled out onto the stale campsite. 

The morning was cold as a carp’s arse and twice as clammy.  The lake lapped at the land, but other than that the world was quiet. Oswin glowered at the charred remains of a fire which made a black scar in the middle of the circle.  He hated being first awake; not only did it mean more time spent in consciousness, but it also meant he was responsible for rekindling the fire.  The lad who was meant to be keeping watch—his good-for-nothing nephew—had fallen asleep leaning against a wagon.  An impressive feat but a useless defense.  Oswin stumped over to the makeshift hearth and was grudgingly pleased to see that a few embers still persisted, though they were buried deep.  He used his staff to poke them back into life, cursing until it worked.

“Not too shabby,” he muttered as the blaze caught.  The warmth wasn’t enough to ease his gout, but it was something.  He leaned against his staff and took a deep breath of the lakeside air.  It was good to be home, or almost.  Come afternoon they’d be back in Lake-town at last.  He’d missed the familiar scents of damp earth, and more faintly, of smoke—he’d always thought that came from the dragon under the mountain. 

Oswin sniffed again.  There was something new there, something his nostrils didn’t recognize.  He’d only been gone a few months.  What could have changed in a season?  He didn’t like what he smelled.  Wet dog, he thought.  Wet dog and bad breath.  He hadn’t noticed that last night.

He glanced around for the source, but his ears found it before his eyes.  A strange howl, the cross between a wolf and a demon, raised the hairs on the back of his neck.  The howl multiplied, one becoming many, until the grotesque baying filled the plains with its dissonance.  Terror made molasses of Oswin’s limbs, so he had to lean on his staff to turn towards the sound, which he did only because he didn’t know what else to do.

The memory of moonlight lit the hellish sight.  A small army of overgrown wolves stampeded towards the caravan, mounted by huge, gnarled riders with coarse armor and weapons that made up with intimidation what they lacked in sophistication.  Oswin couldn’t believe his eyes.  He had heard curious tidings in his recent travels, and any man who made his home so close to a firebreather needed a high tolerance for potential peril—but orcs, this close to Lake-town?  Either he was in the middle of a nightmare, or he had something much worse than gout.  No matter how hard he blinked, however, and despite a good pinch to the arm, the orcs and their wolf-steeds kept getting closer.  Oswin realized he wasn’t hallucinating when he saw one of them heft a spear that looked like it could harpoon a whale.  And if it could do that, it could certainly harpoon a cooper.

Anyone who saw how fast Oswin ran at that moment would never have guessed he was a man who suffered from arthritis.  He hurtled to the nearest wagon and banged on it with his walking stick.

“Awake!” he bellowed, nearly choking on his own voice.  “Awake, you loons!  We’re under attack!”

He ran along the inside of the ring, knocking his staff against the sides of the wagons.  Angry insults sounded from within, from cranky merchants who’d enjoyed a little too much brew last night and wanted nothing more than to sleep it off.  He ignored them, shouting his warning again and again.  He slapped the lad snoring through his watch as he passed him.  His nephew spluttered in confusion, swinging his sword stupidly.  Then he, too, spotted the oncoming orcs and began to screech at such a horrible pitch that every wagon door opened at once.

“To arms!” Oswin cried.  “To arms or we’ll all be pushing up daisies!”But judging from the size of those wolves, he wasn’t so sure those things would be mutually exclusive.


	3. Battle at Daybreak

The fire split the darkness ahead.  It was a sunrise in miniature, a beacon to anyone with half-functional vision, to say nothing of Elf-sight.  The light silhouetted the orc pack riding ahead of them in ghoulish puppetry.

“Fools,” said Tauriel.  Whoever had started the fire had destroyed the humans’ only chance of making it through unscathed.  As she and Legolas pounded closer, she heard a clamor rising from the campsite, the sounds of shouting and wagons quaking as someone mustered the merchants. 

“They plan to fight?” Legolas said in disbelief.  “They should flee.  They would have just as much luck either way.”

Tauriel said nothing.  She had not expected this; like him, she had guessed they would run, if anything.  She admired their bravery, but she had to agree that it was probably misguided.  She steeled herself for the impact between hunters and humans, so that when it came, she did not flinch.  The pack slowed as it streamed through the circle, the rallying shouts of the men turning to screams.  The Elves were almost on top of them, only a hundred feet away and moving in fast.  Tauriel drew an arrow like a breath, fitting it to the string as the scene before her became more than shadows on the horizon—it became real.

She wheeled her bow skyward and let the arrow fly.  It arced across the fading stars and buried itself in the skull of a warg who had climbed onto the roof of the nearest wagon.  With a yelp it slid over the edge, landing on a pack-mate, who used its teeth to toss it aside.  The rider of the slain warg picked himself up off the roof and searched furiously for his unexpected enemy.  When he clapped eyes on the Elves, he paused for only a heartbeat before a roar of rage and warning tore from his throat.  Then he launched himself from the top of the wagon, raising his jagged sword as he soared towards them.  Tauriel palmed the twin daggers that hung at her hips and lifted them just in time to parry the falling blow. 

Sparks flew when the three blades met.  The orc ground his sword against her knives and leaned in close enough for her to feel the heat of his fetid breath.  He snarled when he found her unyielding, his eyes glowing red with frustration.  Tauriel heaved against him with all her might and her daggers sang their freedom.  She dropped to a crouch and swung out with her legs, balanced on her fists as she knocked the orc’s feet from underneath him.  Before he even knew what happened, the elleth leapt, cat-like, onto his chest and cut an X across his throat with both knives. 

She brushed his spittle off her cheek with the back of her hand as she jumped to her feet.  Legolas had left her to her own devices, plunging ahead into the fray.  He spun like a dancer as he fought, switching from bow to blade and back again with his usual balletic agility.  He had already cut down two orcs and was grappling with a third, who Tauriel knew was not long for this world.

 The human merchants, on the other hand, did not fare so well.  She counted at least five slain and another ten in close combat.  They fought bravely, but they were no match for the brute strength of the orc pack.

Tauriel sprinted for the caravan, darting between two wagons to enter the arena.  She pulled a pair of arrows from her quiver, firing one into the neck of a nearby warg and brandishing the second in her hand.  To her left, a fresh-faced human boy fell to his knees under the weight of the orc bearing down upon him.  He shook as he gripped his sword in a last effort to protect himself, but his courage failed him and his arms buckled.  The orc lifted his mace, though he never got to use it—Tauriel lunged for him and scraped the arrow down his bare back, carving a thin line on his skin.  He cried out in anger, but Tauriel had already rebounded out of reach by the time he whirled to meet her, nocking the arrow to her bow and sending it straight between his eyes.

The boy looked down at the orc’s corpse, then up at her, agog.

“Who _are_ you?” he said.  He struggled to his feet and pointed.   “Look out!”

Tauriel spun on her heel, her daggers a silver circle around her.  They sliced across the chest of another orc who had thought to catch her off guard.  Inky blood spurted from the gash and sluiced from his mouth as he crumpled to the ground.

“I am someone who is not to be underestimated.”  She sheathed her daggers in favor of her bow again, flinging an arrow at a retreating warg.  Less than a dozen orcs remained at the camp now; the rest had trampled on, already growing smaller as they rode north—focused on their real objective, Tauriel assumed.  Those who had stayed behind must not have been able to pass up the temptation.  _They would pay for giving into their appetite._

“Tauriel!”

Her gaze tracked to the center of the caravan, where three orc riders had Legolas hemmed in against the campfire, trying to force him into it.  He was holding his own as well as he could, but it was a tight spot and getting tighter.  Tauriel fired three arrows in rapid succession, each one thudding into its own orc spine.  The wargs, however, were hardier than their riders, who collapsed rather obligingly.  It would take more than a single arrow apiece to defeat them. 

Tauriel’s hands remembered her daggers as she closed the distance between her and her hunting partner.  Legolas was deflecting the wargs’ fangs with his own blades, though fending off three at once was a tricky business.  Tauriel sprang at the nearest wolf, landing on its newly-vacated back.  The moment it felt her weight, it howled and began to buck.  She squeezed her legs against his sides to maintain her hold and planted her knives into its back.  It screamed with pain, only convulsing more frantically in its efforts to dislodge her.  Tauriel leaned across its neck so she could bury her daggers behind its ears.  With one last rippling shudder it toppled; as soon as it hit the ground she rolled nimbly over her shoulder and onto one knee.   An arrow nuzzled her bowstring before she had even righted herself.  It found its mark in the jaw of the third warg, the last of the three still standing. 

It trumpeted its fury and pounced.  Tauriel did not act quickly enough.  Its claws dug into her shoulders as it pinned her down, its lupine stink clogging her nose—it smelled like a festering wound, or raw meat rotting in the sun.  She turned her face away from its gaping maw.  Her fingers yearned for her knives, but her arms were practically immobile.  Even if her bow hadn’t been knocked aside in the collision, it would have been useless.  Unless she could get her hands on her daggers, she would have the particular pleasure of knowing what warg-teeth felt like six inches deep in her skin.

A bowstring twanged, and the warg reared back.  Tauriel’s arms were free for an instant before the beast slammed down onto her chest again.  An instant was all she needed.  She yanked her daggers from their sheaths and drove them upward into the warg’s throat.  Thick blood spurted from the wound, splattering her face.  Tauriel pulled her knives free and managed to scramble backwards from underneath the warg before it crushed her with its corpse.  One of Legolas’s arrows protruded from its spine.

 The orcs who had lingered were now in retreat, following behind their brethren who had ridden ahead.  As Tauriel got to her feet, she recognized the pale figure of the pack’s leader doubling back to summon the stragglers.  In the growing light she could see his blind eye clearly, a milky jewel in the distorted flesh of his face.  He shouted something in the guttural orc-language and flourished his blade before turning his warg and racing north.  Within the span of a breath, the orcs were gone, leaving several dead and more wounded in their wake.

“Are you all right?”

Tauriel turned to see the young boy she had rescued, sword trembling in his hand.  Apart from a split lip and a cut on his arm, he had survived intact.

“I am unharmed,” she said, putting away her knives.  “You should look to your own kin.”  When she saw the disappointment in his eyes, she softened.  “But thank you.”

“No problem.”  He was staring at her curiously.  “Why did those orcs attack us?”

“That’s a good question,” came a new voice.  It belonged to an older man, who limped over on his walking stick.  One of his sleeves was soaked with blood, but he seemed more interested in them than in his wound.  “I’ve got another one for you.  What are two Elves doing out of Mirkwood?  Didn’t think you lot liked to leave your cozy little forest.”

“Our business is not your concern,” Legolas said.  He was reclaiming his arrows from the various bodies they’d made homes in, eliciting an unpleasant squelching sound every time he wrenched one free.

“I’d say it became our concern when it stomped through our home,” the man said, his cheeks going red and splotchy.  “Now, I appreciate you helping us out, but I think you owe us an explanation.”

A small crowd had started to gather around them, gawking.  A few of them murmured their agreement.

“We owe you nothing.”  Legolas glowered at the instigator.  “We answer to no mortal.”

“How’s the weather up there on your high horse, elfling?”  The man rapped his staff on the ground in displeasure.  “Bet it’s nice and chilly.”

“Uncle Oswin!” the boy said.

Legolas stepped forward, his eyes a flash of frost, his fingers grazing his ear.  Tauriel intercepted him easily by moving into his path.

“Enough.”  The word resonated in the caravan circle.  She swiveled her head to look at Legolas out of the corner of her eye.  “ _Daro, mellon_.”  She rested a hand on his forearm. “ _Man cerig_?”  He smoldered silently, but did not answer.  Satisfied that he would make no further threats, Tauriel glanced back at the inquisitive merchant—Oswin, she surmised.  “You speak a little too boldly, but I understand that you speak from grief.  I wish that your family did not have to see such needless suffering.  Know that we did not willingly bring this upon you.  Our tale is a long one, and my companion is right—our affairs are not yours to know.  Suffice it to say that the orcs seek something that is not theirs, which is why we hunt them.  You simply happened to be in their way.”

“Are they going to Lake-town?”  The lad’s lower lip quivered.

 Tauriel paused.  Her audience held its collective breath.  “Yes.”  Gasps fluttered around her.  “We hope to stop them before they can wreak too much havoc.  Which is why we must go after them at once.”  She already chafed at the few minutes’ delay they’d spent here.  “I am sorry that we cannot stay and help with your wounded.”

“It’s all right,” the boy said quickly.  “Isn’t it, uncle?”

Oswin groused under his breath.

“Can we offer you anything before you go?” said the boy.  “Food, water, weapons?”

Tauriel shook her head, her copper sheen of hair grazing her shoulders.  “We cannot afford to tarry any longer.  Watch out for yourselves, and stay wary—the world grows wilder every day.”

“So it would seem,” said Oswin.

“Thank you,” his nephew said, determinedly ignoring him.  “Good luck!”

The elleth pressed her hand to her chest and rewarded him with a small bow of respect.  She nodded to Legolas, who had been minding his temper for the last few minutes, apparently not trusting himself to speak after his near-altercation with Oswin.  Together they jogged out of the enclosure of the caravan, heading north into the open expanse of land that remained between them and Lake-town.  They increased their pace to a steady run.  The yellow yolk of the sun was squeezing over the ridge of mountains on their right, spilling golden light across the grass and onto the windowpane lake.  The endless cavern of the sky opened an intense yearning somewhere deep inside Tauriel; there was no sky like this in Mirkwood.  The peak of the Lonely Mountain burned like a brand against the blue, the snow wrapped around its heights shining with the sunrise. 

How could something so beautiful conceal so much evil?  Tauriel marveled.  She expected that the dwarves would be starting their journey to the mountain soon, trusting that they had not run into any further trouble.  Kili had told her of their quest to reclaim their homeland, when she had spoken with him the night they were imprisoned in Thranduil’s halls.  She had heard the Elvenking himself speak of the Arkenstone, how Thorin Oakenshield sought it for its bestowal of the right to rule.  She was unfamiliar with the nuances of dwarven royalty, but she did know this: a dragon slumbered in Erebor, and he would not take kindly to intruders.  Though the dwarves might have escaped from her own realm, and even if they managed to evade capture by their orcish hunters, they would still have Smaug the Golden to contend with.  Tauriel did not envy them that.  She would much rather deal with the orcs.

The pack had a small advantage on them now, perhaps a few miles.  Tauriel could feel weariness grasping at her, though she would not give into it.  They had killed only less than a third of the orcs at the caravan; more than twenty still ran ahead of them.  They would reach Lake-town by nightfall.  If Tauriel was right about the dwarves departing before the evening, then they would have to pursue them further north, towards Dale and the Lonely Mountain itself.  She stole a glance at Legolas.  His legs were pumping efficiently as they ran, his eyes narrowed at the quarry ahead of them.  He’d certainly proven his dedication to their mission so far, but what would he say about venturing as far as Erebor?  To what extent would he be willing to defy his father?

He sensed her gaze and looked over at her.  “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said.  “I am glad you came.”

“So am I,” the prince said.  The hint of a smile traipsed across his lips.  “If I had not, there would be no one to tell you that your face is covered with warg blood.”

Tauriel grimaced.  The touch of a finger to her cheek confirmed it.  “You let me speak to those mortals with this on me the entire time?  No wonder they looked at me so strangely.”

Now he was grinning.  “I am sure they found it most fearsome.”

She scrubbed at her skin with her sleeve.  “The next time you have something foul on _your_ face, I will elect not to tell you and see how you like it.”

“Ah, but Tauriel,” said Legolas with an air of mischief, “you must remember that I am a prince of the Woodland Realm.  I never have something foul on my face.”

“Of course,” the captain said.  “On your most radiant visage, the foul becomes fair, the dark becomes luminous, and so on and so forth.  How could I forget?”

The wind carried their laughter across the lake, where it mingled with the howls of the wargs they hunted.


	4. In the Eaves of Esgaroth

The day stretched on stubbornly.  Tauriel felt bleached by the sun, which had burned in full force all afternoon without a single cloud getting a word in edgewise.  They had not lagged once—they could not, for their quarry seemed to have no notion of rest.  To their frustration, the orcs maintained their lead, and try as they might, the Elves could not seem to gain on them.

Whatever warg blood remained on Tauriel’s face had been eroded by the wind.  It whipped off the water, chilly even in the warmth of the noontime sun, and soughed at her skin until her cheeks were dry and clean. 

She was almost grateful when the light began to dwindle, stretching their two pointy-eared shadows tall on the grass.  Dusk whispered across the Long Lake like a secret, the sun wearying towards Mirkwood, which seemed to reel it into its depths.  _Consuming it, as it does all things that get too close,_ Tauriel thought.  A quilt of clouds moved in just as the stars began to appear.  The elleth could not help but feel disappointed when the night sky grew overcast; she had been looking forward to the revelry of stars more than she had known.  Now when the moon rose it did so behind a veil, thin enough that she could see the outline of its face and just an impression of its light. 

It seemed an ill omen; in fact, the entire evening was altogether too eerie for Tauriel’s liking.  They drew very near Lake-town now, so close that they could hear the normal human sounds of conversation and laughter, boats moving in the canals, the percussion of hundreds of feet on the wharves.  These noises failed to comfort her, knowing as she did what was coming to interrupt them.  More than that, Tauriel feared what those sounds could not tell her: what had happened to the dwarves, and whether all of them were still alive.  She did not know if she truly wanted to find out, aware that the answer might not be what she hoped.

The great bridge of Lake-town came into view, a single pier stretching from the shore to the water-bound settlement itself.  There was no other way to reach the town on foot.  Tauriel willed herself to run swifter as the orc pack arrived at the crossing, a mile or so ahead of them.  She watched the grisly cavalcade as it unspooled along the bridge.

“They are dismounting,” Legolas said.  “They are leaving the wargs behind.”

“They would only encumber them,” Tauriel answered.  “I suppose they have chosen the way of stealth.”

“So it would seem.” 

The orcs proved the truth of her conjecture when they scaled the outer wall and began to leap from roof to roof.  The low commotion of Lake-town continued on, undisturbed and oblivious.  If anyone happened to look up, they might think they only saw a shadow, or perhaps a ghost.  The mind always saw what it wanted to see.

Soon—though not soon enough—the Elves reached the bridge, the feel of the wood strange beneath their feet after a day and a half of running on the soft grass.  Their boots thumped against the planks as they raced across the wharf.  Lake-town loomed ahead of them, spilling lamplight onto the group of wargs milling near its gate.

“We have no time to spare on the wolves,” Legolas said.

Tauriel nodded.  Killing the orcs’ steeds would be useful, but no better than slaying the orcs themselves, if they could.  She was already trying to figure out just how they could sidestep the wargs without alerting the pair of orc grunts that had stayed behind to guard them.

“We must get above,” she said.  “Keep right before the gate.  We can use—”

“The crates against the wall,” Legolas finished.  “A far cry from the branches of Mirkwood, but I suppose they will do.”

“How does the old adage go?  Oh, I know—beggars can’t be choosers.”

“I would not go so far as to call us _beggars_.”  Tauriel heard the frown in his tone.  She shook her head.

“Royalty,” she muttered.

“Come again?”

“I said, quite distinctly, ‘barrel tree.’  That’s what we’ll be climbing.”

The prince did not have time to respond to her quip; they were close enough now to the warg pack that the need for silence was upon them.  Tauriel fell in behind Legolas so that they ran single file along the right edge of the wharf.  They made no effort to lighten their tread, as the Elves were naturally soundless in their movement—a trait that came in quite handy in Mirkwood, where stealth often meant survival.  The orcs had herded their wargs as far to the left of the gate as they could manage in a half-hearted and mostly unsuccessful attempt to stay out of sight.  Since there was no light source behind them, Tauriel guessed that she and Legolas would appear invisible, blending into the night.  The orcs would be hard-pressed to make out their forms in the darkness; after all, their kind was not renowned for their acuity of vision.  They hunted very differently from Elves.

Still, she gritted her teeth as they approached the gate.  Two watchtowers bookended the great wooden door, closed and manned by several sentries who were obviously asleep at their posts.  They had to be, or else Tauriel would have to attribute their failure to raise the alarm as sheer incompetence. 

She kept hard on Legolas’s heels as he bore right, steering towards the immense stockpile of crates stacked against the outer wall.  The boxes scraped together when Legolas leapt onto them, but other than that his climb was completely silent.  Tauriel slung her bow across her chest and followed, adjusting her weight when she found the containers empty of any cargo.   After that, it was merely a matter of balance and efficiency.  She ascended the crates with feline precision, inventing handholds where she needed them and swaying the stack as little as she could manage.  She ignored Legolas’s extended hand when she crowned the wall—he liked to forget that though he might be the prince, _she_ was captain of the guard, and perfectly capable of looking after herself.  Arching a brow, she vaulted over the wall and landed next to him on the rooftop.  The slope was so steep that she had to grip tightly with the soles of her feet to keep from sliding.

“They are separating,” Legolas said quietly.

Tauriel’s gaze quested out across the rooftops, a strange sea filled with waves of thatch and wood.  Shaded moonlight fell across the eaves and illuminated the blanched bodies of the orcs, who had split up in their search of Lake-town. 

 “They know no better than we where the dwarves are.”  Her fingers itched for her bow, even though her targets were out of range.

“Which raises the question, who do we seek first?”

“The leader,” she said at once.  “If we capture him, we could learn the identity of this foul scheme’s architect.  Since your father saw fit to behead the last orc we took prisoner.”

Legolas made a noise of disgust.  “This time, he will not be able to interfere.”

“I do not think we should split up.”  Tauriel’s eyes narrowed as she took inventory of their prey, scattered as they were amidst the town’s rafters.

“No.  We will lose our advantage if we do.”

“We have an advantage?”

“They hunt game that is hidden from them.  We know exactly where our quarry is.”  Legolas turned his head towards her, teeth glinting in the half-light.  His smile held about as much humor as a scimitar.

Speech became superfluous as they moved over Lake-town.  They took their cues from body language: a flash of the eyes, a tilt of the head, the curve of the other’s shoulders intimating which direction to take.  Tauriel was more thankful than ever for the physical vocabulary that they shared between them.  It made it much easier to navigate the sharp angles of Esgaroth.  These roofs were much more plainspoken than the knotwork of Mirkwood, but traversing them seemed somehow less intuitive to the Silvan elf.  After centuries of learning the spirals of the trees by heart, it was odd to deal in straight lines and absolutes. 

Laughter seemed to be the chief order of business in the streets, and Tauriel’s sensitive nose picked up the smell of alcohol underneath the much heavier odors of fish, ice, and water-mold.  _Let it never be said that this place is bland._ It became increasingly difficult for the elleth to avoid casting her gaze to the paths and waterways below them.  Time and time again she thought she glimpsed one of the dwarves, only to realize that none of the dwarves were that tall, and that her vantage point was playing tricks on her eyes. 

The rough weave of the orcish tongue made Tauriel look up.  They were about to butt heads with a group of three orcs a few rooftops away.  The trio had taken no notice of the Elves closing in on them; they were distracted by something on the ground.  One of them stretched to his full height and flailed his sword in the air, the metal flaring dimly.  A soft growl spread across Lake-town, a signal that sent a tingle down Tauriel’s spine.  A call to arms.

“No.”  The word leapt from her mouth before she could stop it.

“They have succeeded,” Legolas breathed.

“We must stop them!”  Tauriel sprang up from her crouch behind the ridge of the roof.  Almost immediately, Legolas jerked her back down.  He grasped a handful of her hem, holding her fast.  “What are you doing?  They have not succeeded _yet_!”

“This situation requires caution,” he said.  “We cannot rush in blindly, we need a plan of attack—”

“I will not sit here and watch the dwarves die,” Tauriel snapped.  “Do what you will, Thranduil-son, but I must act and you will not hinder me!”

Taken aback by her outburst, Legolas slackened his grip, allowing Tauriel to hurl herself onto the other side of the roof.  She skidded down the shingles, arms out for balance, and shoved off the gutter.  She soared through the air and struck the gable of the next house over, pushing against it and boomeranging backwards.  The railing of a balcony below rushed up to meet her.  She twisted in midair and put out her hands, though it did little to lessen the impact when she crashed into the balcony.  The railing rammed into her stomach, deflating her lungs, but she could scarce pause to recover her breath.  She guided her hands down the posts that supported the rail, dangling her legs for an eyeblink before dropping to the ground below. 

Tauriel did not waste another second.  She tore down the wooden street, wending her way through the passersby as she headed in the direction of the orcs.  A shadow overhead caught her eye—she looked up to see Legolas sailing over the gap between two houses.  Apparently her refusal to wait had spurred him to action.  _Good_. 

The mortals crowding the streets gave her strange looks as she ran, moving out of her path so she had a clear shot.  A faint scream to the south made her ears twitch.  It sounded like a young girl—that was unexpected.  She made a hard left and bucketed down the path in the direction of the sound, which was joined now by the snarls of the orc hunters.  Then a third layer added itself to the mix, the noise that Tauriel had both hoped and feared to hear: the raised voices of the dwarves.  Panic clouded her senses, so she could not count their number by ear, but she could tell there were no more than four or five at the most. 

_Who was left behind?_  

Even as she asked the question, Tauriel knew the answer. 

She rounded a corner and spotted the orcs two buildings away.  Several of them were rioting up the stairwell of a house on the canal, trying to force the front door open.  Someone inside was holding it shut, but they could not barricade it for long.  Without missing a beat, Tauriel loosed a volley of arrows into the steeple of orcs, still running as she fired again and again.  She had almost made it to the stairs when the door gave out and the pack funneled into the house.

“ _Daro!_ ” Tauriel cried, forgetting in her passion that the orcs could not understand Sindarin even if they wanted to.  Her knives screamed double as she drew them, taking the steps three at a time and slashing out at every orc she passed.  She did not stop to see if her blows were lethal—she had only one goal, one thought seared into her mind.  _Get to the dwarves._ She reached the top of the stairs, kneed an orc in the groin and threw him over the banister, headfirst into the water with a terrific splash.  But there were more, so many more, some already in the house, others clambering up the stairs behind her. 

Where was Legolas when she needed him?  He had all but vanished.  She refused to believe that he had abandoned their mission—abandoned her—but she had no time to dwell on the errant prince.  She smashed her hilt into the temple of an oncoming orc and felt the eggshell crunch of bone.  _That_ one had been lethal.  She pivoted on her heel, flung herself through the doorframe and into the small home beyond.

The room was in an uproar.  A pair of young girls dove underneath the kitchen table as two dwarves—one blonde, the other gray-haired—fought to stave off the attack.  And there, on a bed on the far side of the room, lay Kili.  Drenched in sweat and trembling, he struggled to prop himself up, his dark eyes wild with poison.  Relief and fear washed over the Elf in equal measure, their contradiction an ember in her throat.  His eyes met hers, and Tauriel thought she glimpsed the courage and the warm sincerity she had seen in him before.  It was that same spark of Kiliness that had kindled this strange wonderment within her, lit the strength of conviction that had stripped all doubts from her mind and buoyed her heart with hope.

As she watched, the spark faded, and the hope with it.  Anger deepened into a slow burn that touched her very core.  Her daggers ached in her fists.  _They are as bloodthirsty as I am.  I have taught them well._   She tightened her fingers around their hilts and set her jaw as the orcs turned toward her.

“Well, filth,” she said, “I hope you have not grown overly fond of living.”

Tauriel spun her daggers in her hands and leapt forward.


	5. Poison or Pursuit?

Legolas had not abandoned the mission.  Neither had he abandoned Tauriel; it just so happened that their paths had diverged.  After the captain’s act of defiance, Legolas had not quite known what to do.  He was saved the trouble of deciding when he spotted the orc leader and three of his henchmen break off from the rest of the group.  The four of them kept to the roofs as the others scuttled to the ground, following the same route from above.  Curious, Legolas watched them as they scampered.  It was as if the leader wanted his underlings to do the dirty work for him, choosing not to get involved until they had found what he sought.  The prince wondered if Tauriel would be a big enough incentive to entice the leader down.

“That elleth will be the death of me,” he said to himself.  Throwing caution to the wind—a highly uncharacteristic move for him—Legolas rose from his hiding place and pattered down the slope of the roof.  He bounded across the gap and up the next roof, cresting its peak and turning so his feet balanced on the ridge.  The orcs were straight ahead, only a few buildings away, and they had not noticed him.  Legolas drew a preemptive arrow, inhaled deeply, and began to run.

A thrill coursed through him, sheer delight at his own brazen recklessness as he made jumps that were a little too wide to be advisable—and still he made them.  He was a silent phantom haunting the chimneys of Lake-town, swift and fleeting as a gust of wind.  Ahead of him, the orcs were shouting in their ugly language, the leader gesturing to his forces below.  At his cue, the orcs on the street turned south.  Legolas watched as they surrounded a house that overhung the water, and his ears caught the sound of girlish screams carried on the breeze.  Meanwhile, the leader and his followers shinnied down the northern side of their building, howling in delight.  Whatever they were hunting, they were about to take it down. 

Legolas threw himself from the roof, making an unlikely landing on the corner of a balcony one level down.  From there he could see the orcs’ target—it was one of the dwarves.  The ellon had no inkling which one it was; they all looked the same to him.  He was hustling in the direction of the house now under siege, an abominable excuse for a hat on his head and a clump of leaves clutched in his hands.  He had led the orcs straight to the dwarves’ hideout.  How convenient.  How many of them were in that house? Legolas wondered.  Whoever had remained in Lake-town was about to be slaughtered, unless Tauriel could stay on top of the situation until he got there.

The dwarf pulled up short when the orcs fell out of the sky, dropping into his path like a quartet of giant albino spiders.

“That’s right,” said Legolas under his breath.  “Stop and stare, you imbecilic dwarf.”  He lifted his bow almost lazily and shot one of the orcs dead in the eye.

His comrades dissolved into a frenzy, combing the streets for the hidden archer.  The leader, who had hung back behind the other three, roared his displeasure.  He barked an order before loping off towards the battle beyond, leaving the remaining pair to their fate.

Legolas leapt from his perch, dispatching both of them with one deft arrow each.  The last arrow whizzed perilously close to the dwarf’s head, the wind from its shaft riffling his hat.

“Mind your aim!”  The dwarf glanced over his shoulder as Legolas jogged up.  “That’s my favorite hat, that is.  My only hat, if you’re picky.”

“And here I would have thought to be more concerned about the head underneath it.”  Legolas did not bother to disguise his annoyance at the dwarf’s snide attitude.

“Heads may come and heads may go, but hats, dear fellow, are forever,” he said in a sing-song tone.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get these back to m’lad Kili.”  He jiggled the plant in his hands, which Legolas now recognized as athelas.  “Thanks for the rescue.  Cheers!”  Doffing his hat, the dwarf trotted off towards the house, hopping over the three orc bodies, not yet cold where they lay.

“Thank you,” Legolas muttered, “for reminding me why I dislike dwarves.”  He could hardly believe he was about to risk his neck for that oaf a second time.  But if he did not go after him, there was little chance he would make it back to his injured friend without a limb or two missing, himself.  Misplaced optimism would do nothing to get him through that orc horde.  Heaving a sigh, Legolas started after him.  “This had better make you happy, Tauriel.”

* * *

Tauriel was far from happy.  She plunged her left-hand dagger into the chest of an orc coming at her from the corner.  It was a good hard stick—so snugly placed that she could not get the blade free again.

“Watch out!” the fair-haired dwarf said.  Tauriel heard a scuffle in the doorway behind her and realized she needed to recover her knife fast or else leave it in the orc’s chest.

She settled for neither.  Clenching the hilt, she ran at the wall, using the leverage of the planted dagger and her own momentum to scramble up the side and back towards the door.  She catapulted herself from the corner, pinwheeling her legs and slamming her heels into the head of the orc who had the audacity to sneak up behind her.  When she landed, the knife twisted sickeningly in its victim’s sternum and came loose in time for Tauriel to tally two gashes in the ribs of the next orc.  There was no shortage of enemies to fight; they kept streaming in through the door.  She cut down as many as she could, but they were arriving too quickly for her to deal with all at once. 

A handful of orcs slipped past her, hounding the pair of dwarves that stood as a shield between Kili and the fight.  The grey-haired one was slow to react, but he was fierce enough; he had already felled two assailants.  The younger one, the blond that Tauriel recognized as Kili’s brother, fought with an admirable fury, though it made his blows somewhat sloppy, if no less effective.   As valiantly as they defended their companion, the two of them could not stanch the flow of orcs as they swept into the cramped space.  Out of the corner of her eye, Tauriel saw one bypass the dwarves, lunging for Kili. 

A feral cry ripped from her throat.  Her bow flew into her hands, as if she had called it by name.  But her hold slipped when someone seized her hood and dragged her back.  Her poised arrow escaped from the string, clipping the orc’s arm, and struck one of the bedposts.  Cursing her own clumsiness, Tauriel bashed her elbow into the nose of the orc that had ruined her shot.  She whirled around to knock the stunned orc’s weapon from his hand.  Her impatience got the better of her then; flipping her knife in her palm, she pounded the butt of its hilt into his face, again and again and again and again.

He had not even hit the floor before Tauriel turned and dashed across the room.  Kili had locked swords with the orc that was menacing him, still lying on the bed, but his whole body shook from the strain.  Tauriel was on the table in a flash, upsetting a bowl of walnuts.  She reached out with her bow, hooked it around the orc’s neck, and yanked him back.  She held his body against her own, digging the bow into his flesh until it strangled him.  His hands scrabbled at his throat, sword falling forgotten to the floor.  Kili slid over the edge of the bed and slumped to the ground, landing on all fours.  A fresh wave of fear surged through Tauriel—had the orc wounded him a second time?

The dwarf stirred, struggling to his knees with a cry of anguish.  His voice pierced Tauriel like a shard of ice.  Not dead, not yet, but close—she knew the sound of someone who thought he was about to die and no longer cared what happened to him.

Kili thrust with his sword, driving it deep into the belly of the choking orc.  Black blood sprayed his face.  Tauriel slipped her bow free and shoved the orc to the side, staring down at Kili, who looked up at her, his once-handsome eyes now pearly with the poison that enthralled him.  He did not know her.

“Kili—”

She had no chance to say more.  A hand grabbed her hair and hauled her mercilessly from the table, walnuts rolling everywhere.  Tauriel screamed and dropped her bow, lashing out with her feet, but the orc had a good grip on her, and he held her in place so she had nowhere to run.  She drew her daggers and deflected not only the orc in front of her, but the captor at her back as well.  It was a delicate balance, and hard to maintain when one of them had a fistful of her hair limiting her mobility.  Having her hair held hostage made her angrier than anything else so far.  She snarled her frustration as she parried two blows at once.  _Where was that self-important princeling when you needed him?_

Suddenly the pressure on her scalp released.  The orc’s death shriek nearly deafened her, but it was music to her ears.  Overjoyed at having full control of her body again, Tauriel hailed a flurry of attacks onto the opponent before her, bombarding him until he fumbled his weapon and she opened his throat with a graceful swipe of her knives.  She watched him as he lay twitching at her feet, relishing the moment when his body gave up and went still.  It was the ultimate satisfaction. 

She turned to see Kili’s brother gaping at her, his own knife embedded in the other orc’s skull.

“No one touches my hair,” she said acidly, as if that explained the whole thing.

The throb of a bowstring and the howl of an orc heralded Legolas’s arrival.  Tauriel heard the prince’s footsteps on the stairwell seconds before he burst into the room, finishing off the last two orcs in the house with a pair of arrows.  His eyes took in the scene before him, bright and disbelieving.

Outside, the orcs were shouting to each other.  Judging from sounds alone, Tauriel thought they were moving off, surrendering their efforts to slay the dwarves.  They must have realized that most of the company was elsewhere—their real prize was obviously Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the group and the heir of Durin’s line.  Tauriel was glad that the dwarves here would be safe for the time being, but her heart sank when she realized she would need to leave again to pursue the orc pack north, onward to the Lonely Mountain.

“Tauriel, come.”  Legolas did not wait to see if she would obey.  He sprinted out the door and down the stairs.  She heard an arrow _whoosh_ and plunk solidly into its target.

He was right—they should go.  Their task was to track down and kill the orc party, a task they had not yet completed.  A handful of orcs, including the leader, still lived.  Tauriel had every intention of fulfilling her promise to help the dwarves, but something was holding her back.  She turned and looked over her shoulder at Kili; the two other dwarves were trying to hoist him up off the floor, though they were having a hard time of it.  He kept pushing them away, calling out and trembling uncontrollably.  The Morgul poison had seized him.  If she left now, he would die, or worse—he would succumb to the shadow world.

A fearsome hollowness emptied into Tauriel, from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head.  Her bones were caverns, her heart a honeycomb, her very soul nothing more than echo in some great lost place.  She faced her desolation and named it doubt.  Never before had she been called to make such a gut-wrenching decision, where both choices were right and both were wrong at the same time.  What she had wanted was to make a difference—not knowing it would come down to choosing one difference, and only one, to make.

“Tauriel!”

Legolas’s voice resounded in her hollowness, filling it momentarily.  On instinct she hastened to the door, her body choosing to follow her hunting partner, purely out of habit.  They had orcs to chase.

Out on the porch, Tauriel nearly fell over a fourth dwarf who came beetling up the stairs.  She recognized him from his stint in the Woodland Realm: the one with the questionable hat.  It was hard not to stare at it.  He stared back at her, mouth slightly open, eyes wide.  Her gaze finally quit his hat and trailed down to his hands, which crushed a clump of white-flowering plants between them.

She could not believe her eyes.  She blinked several times, very deliberately, to make sure this was no delusion.  When nothing changed, Tauriel reached out and took the plant from the dwarf without asking permission.  She turned it over in her hands, trying to authenticate it.  Indeed she could find no fault with it—it was the genuine article, none other than a bundle of athelas, an herb with remarkable healing properties.  Few folk beyond Elvendom were wise to its powers.  Tauriel was shocked that this dwarf would think to seek it out, and even more surprised that he had actually found it here in Lake-town.

He goggled up at her.  “What are you doing?”

Tauriel brought the athelas to her face.  The scent from the bruised leaves lifted the shadow hanging over her, filling the aching hollowness with calm confidence.  She raised her chin and looked down at the dwarf.  Her decision had been made.

“I’m going to save him.”


End file.
